FG to phase-out heavy energy consuming devices

The National Council on Power, NCoP, has mandated the Ministry of Power to collaborate with relevant agencies to develop a national policy on energy efficiency and conservation.

This is aimed at phasing out heavy energy consuming devices from homes, offices and industries in the country.
The proposed policy will be geared towards ensuring that all electrical equipment and households electrical items are in compliance with international low energy consumption guidelines.

The Council also recommended that a minimum of N160 billion be made available to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, to take care of its annual expenditure on operations.

NCOP however stated that about 75 per cent of such funds, depending on its source should be expended on meeting the capital expenditure, Capex, of TCN in ramping up its electricity wheeling capacity in Nigeria’s Electricity Supply Industry, NESI.

“Until such a time that a cost reflective tariff is established and 90 per cent or greater of annual earned market is received, it should be ensured that the sum total of annual funding provided to TCN from the market, loan, and appropriations sources is not less than N160 billion annually, with 75 per cent earmarked for CAPEX,” it said.

The Council expressed the hope that its recommendations will be adopted by the federal government in advancing the power sector reforms.

A copy of the recommendations obtained by Vanguard, the Council urged the TCN to also liaise with state governments to sort out the extant issues of Right of Way, RoW, in the construction of transmission projects across the country.

It said: “Council further recommends that TCN liaises with states ministries of power and departments of power to effectively establish Rights of way corridors. Council also recommends that TCN signs MoU with states that recognise provision of land by states as their contribution towards the success of the transmission projects.”

The Council also advocated for the independence of the Market and System Operations Departments of the TCN. It equally requested that employees’ salaries, benefits and critical business infrastructure needs of the TCN be funded from appropriations on a pro-rata basis and based on percentage shortage earnings from previous year’s market revenue earnings.

On the generation aspect of NESI, NCOP advocated for stakeholders to set up short term targets to wheel about 9,000 megawatts, MW, and evacuate 6,500MW in 2014. It also wants to set up of a medium term target for 12,000MW and 10,000MW respectively by 2016.

On efficiency, the NCOP wants TCN to monitor at least 90 per cent of the installed grid system; perform transmission network fault location determination within 30 minutes of occurrence and comply with regulations on financial reporting.